Ralf Dömges

Adapting traceability environments to project-specific needs

R equirements traceability is defined as the ability to describe and follow the life of a requirement, in both a forward and backward direction. It implies the life of each requirement can be understood from its origin, through its development and specification, to its subsequent deployment and use, and through periods of ongoing refinement and iteration [6]. Requirements traceability is a prerequisite for effective system maintenance and consistent change integration [2]. Neglecting traceability or capturing insufficient and/or unstructured traces leads to a decrease in system quality, causes revisions, and thus, increases project costs and time. It results in a loss of knowledge if individuals leave the project, leads to wrong decisions, misunderstanding, and miscommunications [8, 11]. Recent empirical research shows that systems management practice is progressing from the initial simple compliance verification schemata to very sophisticated models and policies for requirements traceability (see Ramesh in this section as well as [6, 8, 11, 12]). Table 1 gives an indication of the richness of advanced traceability schemes. However, the same studies also point out that full capture of all conceivable traces according to these advanced models is neither desirable nor feasible when considering project cost and time. If requirements traceability is not customized it can lead to an unwieldy mass of unstructured and unusable data that will hardly ever be used [6, 9]. The adaptation of trace capture and usage to project-specific needs is thus a prerequisite for successfully establishing traceability within a project and for achieving a positive cost-benefit ratio. The traces to be captured are influenced by factors like project schedule and project budget [11], by the contract, the development standards applied, existing laws, or the expected trace usage. A number of examples, drawn from focus group data of the study reported by Ramesh, are sketched in the sidebar “Examples of Project-Specific Trace Capture and Usage.” The increasing use of commercial requirements traceability environments by industry reflects that traceability is recognized as a critical success factor. A vendor survey of commercial requirements traceability environments performed by :

PRIME—toward process-integrated modeling environments: 1

Research in process-centered environments (PCEs) has focused on project management support and has neglected method guidance for the engineers performing the (software) engineering process. It has been dominated by the search for suitable process-modeling languages and enactment mechanisms. The consequences of process orientation on the computer-based engineering environments, i.e., the interactive tools used during process performance, have been studied much less. In this article, we present the PRIME (Process Integrated Modeling Environments) framework which empowers method guidance through process-integrated tools. In contrast to the tools of PCEs, the process-integrated tools of PRIME adjust their behavior according to the current process situation and the method definitions. Process integration of PRIME tools is achieved through (1) the definition of tool models; (2) the integration of the tool models and the method definitions; (3) the interpretation of the integrated environment model by the tools, the process-aware control integration mechanism, and the enactment mechanism; and (4) the synchronization of the tools and the enactment mechanism based on a comprehensive interaction protocol. We sketch the implementation of PRIME as a reusable implementation framework which facilitates the realization of process-integrated tools as well as the process integration of external tools. We define a six-step procedure for building a PRIME-based process-integrated environment (PIE) and illustrate how PRIME facilitates change integration on an easy-to-adapt modeling level.

Towards Method-Driven Trace Capture

Traceability is a prerequisite for managing the evolution of (software) systems. Assuring overall traceability of a system development process, i.e., capturing and interrelating all possible data, is almost impossible and by far too expensive and labor intensive. To minimize the information to be recorded and to reduce the additional costs the types of trace information to be captured should be adjusted to project-specific needs, e.g., intended trace usage, time and money available.

Decision oriented process modelling

We propose decision-oriented process modelling as a step towards human-centered process management, and demonstrate some implications of this model for the interaction between process modelling, process enactment, and process performance in a CASE environment. We also discuss the potential our approach offers for experience-based process improvement.

A Filter-Mechanism for Method-Driven Trace Capture

Traceability is a prerequisite for developing high quality (software) systems. Recording and maintaining all available information is too labor intensive and thus by far too expensive. A project-specific definition of the trace information to be recorded and the method fragments (so called trace fragments) to be executed for recording the information provides a solution for this problem. But the amount of traces to be recorded does not only vary from project to project. It also varies between project phases and even within a project phase. As a consequence project-specific trace fragments need to be adapted according to the actual project phase.

Tool integration support for modeling in open-CAPE environments

Abstract The development of modeling tools within the context of future open computer-aided process engineering environments requires careful consideration of tool integration strategies such that the modeling process is optimally supported, and the resulting models achieve their full usage potential. We differentiate between five kinds of tool integration, describe the kinds of integration offered by existing process engineering environments, and thereby identify the major shortcomings of current approaches. To indicate a possible solution to these shortcomings we sketch the tool integration approach realized in PRO-ART/CE, a prototypical process engineering environment.